kye

I've found that adjusting diopters can be really tricky because if you adjust them then your eye just adjusts to compensate, so your eyes kind of don't tell you when the diopter is adjusted wrong - you just end up with eye strain after a while and you don't really know why.

You always note the difference - I tought than moving from the 20mp m4/3 to 26mp X-mount will not bring too much of a difference, but I was wrong. Both in quality and storage requirements...

For some instances, 40mp would be very useful. For concert shooting, the ability to crop from 40mp to 20mp would be very welcome. But for "no crop" work, not so much.

One thing that was never explained (or tested): if you drop the resolution from 40mp to 20mp in stills, it is oversampled or line-skipped? If you don't need the 40mp for some work, a oversampled 20mp image could both bring less storage requirements AND (maybe) more color accuracy. This would be a very interesting alternative to me - albeit, if oversampled, probably would not diminish rolling shutter (could even increase it).

And for video, the 40mp sensor needing to crop to be oversampled in 4k was a HUGE bummer.
 

Well yeah you'd assume sensor & processing go hand in hand, but if you look at XH2/XH2S, here are two cameras with identical processing but different sensors, one stacked the other not. XH2S's stacked sensor allows fast read out that enables super low RS but also 14-bit processing. It does give up 8K in favour of 6.2K and is a bit more noisy. Stacked sensors are also more expensive to produce so that does add a bit to the cost. 
To me that's an acceptable trade-off. But I think that most manufacturers feel that a cheaper camera with 8K/45MP will be much more of a sell factor than more expensive faster read out 6.2K/26MP camera. Fuji were smart enough to give us both options but at Sony/Canon/Nikon, they seem to reserve the speedy stacked sensors for their expensive flagship sports/action cams. That probably won't change any time soon, so just wishful thinking on my part but I'd like to see a fast "XH2S" type hybrid from the other big players that isn't a high megapixel sports camera. like an FX30S, R6S, Z6S..

I am excited to hear your guys thoughts. 

The white balance and tint was quite different on the two cameras. The Alexa has a bit more texture I would say, the sigma a little cleaner. 

He'll either sell it for a huge loss or kill it. 

As recently discussed with you in a parallel thread, increasing MPix will inevitably decrease RS and overall read out among other things. That is why R3 has much better RS in video than Z9 or A1. Or can do 195fps max burst rate at full resolution in FF vs 120fps in 11MP crop mode for Z9. It's always a give & take. And depending on the user that will tilt balance in either direction.  
Again I think Fuji did the smart thing with XH2/XH2S giving the user the option of super fast readout or high resolution 45MP/8K.
Finally I think the R3 sits just fine against the A1/Z9 and given the choice I'd pick it over the other two. But that's because I value read-out speed in both photo/video over super high resolution. 
In the end I'm not a sports/action shooter though so no real need to invest in such cameras. I just wished there was a fast stacked sensor in a non flagship action/sports oriented body. XH2S fits the bill but I'm not sure I wanna head back to Fuji system for other reasons.

@kye @OleB

Here are some comparisons. 

One with pure tungsten, one with a 5600k and RED light, one daylight shadows, and one daylight sun. Hopefully these are helpful. Worst part of this is uploading to the drive takes like 12 hours lol. 
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1qxyxV-fFrBnyAh66joyRlgc2J6Xwbn7J?usp=share_link

I actually did expose both cameras exactly the same as they looked similar at the same ISO. Outside shots were at F11-F16 and further adjusted with the shutter. Lenses were Meike 35mm on Alexa and Meike 50mm on the Sigma. 

Nah, that is a Cine-M-ilv-K

Personally, I'd really appreciate the extra digital zoom capabilities, but for shooting 1080p (as I do) the 6K sensors are just as good and most cameras don't give you the digital zoom options that I'd really like, so the resolution of the sensor is secondary in that sense.
Also, if the battery life is crap and it overheats, then it's giving me zero footage rather than even sub-optimal footage, a pretty fundamental issue.
The other issue is that if you're using the sensor to get a 4x digital crop (1080p --> 8K) then your lenses will be by far the limit to the quality rather than the sensor.  You might find that a 6K sensor upscaled to 8K has the same level of fine detail as an 8K sensor without scaling.  
Assuming you have a fast enough machine.  Many people would argue that any decent machine can edit 4K, but with many cameras shifting to IPB, 10-bit, h265, decoding that footage in real-time is no small feat at all.
If I end up with a GH6, which lacks the 2x zoom function from the GH5, then I'd probably just program a mode to be 4K 1:1 and swap to that and then crop in post.  Hardly ideal, but would give me a bit more reach and still be downsampled to 1080p.  

No, I'm referring to NVIDIA/AMD. I just did a test for you. I have a Lenovo Legion 5i Pro laptop with an i7-12700h CPU and a 3070Ti GPU. I loaded a 2160p 4:2:2 HEVC F-Log clip to Resolve, added a LUT and some tweaking.
With hybrid mode enabled (that is Resolve can use both internal GPU and the dedicated one), I get smooth 25fps playback with low CPU usage and rendered out the clip with the H.265 Master preset in 18 seconds.
Now if I switch to dedicated GPU only mode, I get 21-23 fps playback and high CPU usage and the clip rendered out in 41 seconds.
So basically with 10th or higher gen Intel CPU I get 4:2:2 support in addition to what the GPU already offers, no need for a Mac (for this).

Two frame delay between FX30 screen and WiFi to iPhone 11.
Useful when rigging camera in hard to reach places. App gives live image (as you can see) and full control of pretty much all camera setting.

I updated the FW to 1.6 as soon as it came out, it froze 2 days later on a photo shoot...shutter button stopped working until I restarted it; back screen and everything else kept working, just shutter button wouldn't do anything when I pressed it....not exactly confidence inspiring.
Yes the EVF delay for photos is in all mirrorless cameras but it seemed excessive to me so I opened a ticket with Canon and paid $150 to ship it to them and they returned it saying nothing was wrong. The R7 has the same delay, if a person blinks while taking their picture, in the EVF their eyes are still open, when reviewing the image their eyes are closed, runway shows are the worst for me, the front foot is on the ground in the EVF, in the captured image they have already picked it back up, little things like that are decreasing my keeper count.....definitely making me miss my OVF especially since I typically have a flash setup so I can't just spray and pray; and yes I have tried the higher FPS mode for the EVF.
I had a ballerina jumping and doing twirls for a photo shoot....that was the worst, I was ready to throw the camera out of the window, there was literally no way to do anything except just hope for a few keeper shots; I had multiple flashes setup so again...no spray and pray option due to flash recycle times.
The R7 is quirky too....sometimes the hotshoe doesn't trigger the flash, I know it is not the flash because it is the same flash I have had for years. Also, pressing the record button while it is recording doesn't always stop the recording, requiring multiple presses. After stopping the recording there's a delay of approximately 3-5s where you can't record again as if the buffer is clearing out or something like that; the S5 did not do that.
I really think Canon's cameras have become so complicated that they have all the sophistication of modern computers along with all of their intermittent issues. 
So yes, when I am on a photoshoot I just don't trust the R5 it is that simple; I don't want the photo side of it to lock up or have an issue because I was off shooting some b-roll video since I value reliability above all else.  I got used to a dedicated photo camera with the 5DIV's rock solid reliability (its video was unusable), so after those issues early on I will treat the R5 the same way. Ironically, I trust the R7 more as a hybrid than the R5.
But back to the R6II 🤣 I noticed another feature they brought to the R6II that the S5 had in 2020.....the big red recording box. This is a great feature to verify that it is recording (and another feature that could be brought to the other cameras via a FW update).  I couldn't tell from the CVP video if the box stays on or just shows when it starts recording.
 
I absolutely hate proxy media because of how much time it takes and because of my particular workflow (I only import the exact clips that I need for the project, so I would need to create proxy media each time mid project). Instead, what I do is scrub through and find the piece of the clip I want, then cut it up and add it to the timeline then use optimized media since it is much faster because it is creating a proxy of just that part of the clip. 
It still stutters during the initial review process; mainly on 60FPS media. I am still waiting to see if the NVIDIA 4000 series video cards can accelerate 10 bit 4:2:2 media, for some reason that information is impossible to find and I search about once a week or so. I suppose I could email NVIDIA and ask them. It is very disappointing that in 2022 PC users still have no video card options for 4:2:2.
What you will discover with the EF 70-200 adapted is the same thing that I discovered; AF is the least of your problems. The real problem is the weight of the lens making your camera feel like it is going to tear itself apart. With the EF 70-200 lens on the R5 plus the adapter the whole body was flexing, the adapter and the lens mount was making weird noises, and it really felt like the whole thing was going to fall apart.....vs the 5DIV where the two fit together like a glove.
The flexing and sounds were so bad I ended up getting the RF 70-200 since it is my most used portrait lens; actually, it is my most used photography lens of all time due to runway shows. So yes.....YT reviewers really gloss over a lot and you don't learn details like those until you actually try to use it. I think it is both the length and weight that make the combo so bad, I assume there are RF lenses just as heavy but not as long.

With the benefit of five years of hindsight, what might you have changed if you were to go back in time? 

Try me

The latest batteries for the OG BMPCC get WAY more than that - I got 49 minutes of RAW recording from one 1200mAh battery, and 33 minutes of Prores HQ from a different battery (but it wasn't fully charged).
I unpacked the brand new Wasabi 1200mAh batteries and put them on to charge, so the test was done taking a brand new battery straight out of the charger. I was recording in RAW the card filled up after 23m, with the battery at 54%, so I formatted the card and hit record again, and when it got to 5% battery life it was at 26m, which makes 49m for one the life of a single 1200mAh battery.  That's probably a best-case scenario, but it's pretty darn good if you ask me.  
Second brand new battery recording Prores HQ died around the 20% battery mark, and recorded a 33:22s file.  I'm not sure if it charged properly as the charger kept turning off but it only registered 81% in the camera when I put it in, so maybe not fully charged, but that's also not bad.
This is approaching the battery life of the modern gigapixel monsters that dominate the market now.  The BMPCC battery life complaints are something that used to be bad but are much more 'normal' now, not great, but not unheard of either.

That would be great.
"The pixels are just awful, but it's ok because there's a bazillion of them!" was never an attractive concept.
Of course, photographers have been shooting RAW for way longer than we have in video, and in video they give you more bitrate for higher resolutions, so it was never about the straight number of pixels anyway.  We may get there eventually, but it's not going to be any time soon!

I firmly believe that almost everything can be quantified, but this one falls very far beyond the point of what is practical.
The GH5 tests I saw with the person stepping into and out of frame had the AF recognise a face and change focus across a range of reaction times - sometimes it was fast and other times reluctant, and occasionally the person would just stand there being ignored like a camera nerd at a high-school dance.  There aren't any easy way to quantify this.  GH5 testers couldn't even get the test to replicate, providing a number of hilarious examples were the person was walking around saying how bad it was and it tracking them just fine, and other testers saying it was really good and it doing quite badly.
One YouTuber who got the C70 when it first came out admitted in a follow-up review that he had to stop using the C70 until it had a firmware update or two because when it first arrived it had trouble recognising faces of darker-skinned people.  IIRC he had to hire something to use on commercial shoots because the C70 wasn't ready yet.  Canon can't even test their AF properly and it's one of their key brand differentiators!
If you were to quantify AF performance, not only would you have to have a dozen or so metrics (speed to recognise a face, how out-of-focus the face can be before it recognises a face, maximum tracking speed, how much of the face has to be visible, how far around the side of the face it detects, how bad the lighting has to be for it to recognise a face, etc) but you'd really struggle to quantify the GH5-style lack of reliability except to have an enormous sample size.
Peter McKinnon made a promo video for his new product, and at the 6:12 mark, the camera goes from focusing on the object:

to focusing on his face:

the two frames above are 2 frames apart.  Why did the mighty Canon PDAF randomly choose that moment to change focus to his face from the largest object in the centre of the frame?  Heck knows, but there were even previous frames where more of his face was showing and it didn't choose those times to change focus....
Here's the video linked to that time - judge it for yourself...  
 
That's an AF problem right there.  People tend to think that Canon PDAF or Sony eye-detect PDAF are perfect but in reality they stuff up from time to time, and they tend to think that GH5 is completely useless when it actually gets things right quite a large percentage of the time.  
I've seen shots in vlogs where Canon PDAF cameras just randomly focus on the background when the persons face was visible the whole time.  They're rare, but I've seen at least two that made it to the final edit - we can only guess how many others ended up being cut. 
Any methodology that quantifies AF performance would be useless if it ignored the lack-of-reliability problem (because it would declare the GH5 AF to be great when it's obviously not) and it would be wrong if it gave Canon and Sony a perfect score when they obviously aren't quite there, despite being impressively close.
Sure, you can quantify some aspects of AF performance, but to be even remotely useful, you'd have to test so many variables and some of them would require such incredibly large sample sizes that it just wouldn't be practical.

Yeah, I thought that 12-bit RAW sensor readout (and the corresponding 10bit log) was pretty much the standard on almost all cameras that have a log profile.  I thought that some cameras had a 14-bit readout but it wasn't that common.
Of course, that is just another feather in the cap for 5D with Magic Lantern - 14-bit RAW straight to the card.  Still a standout spec and stand-out image, 14 years later.

The latest batteries for the OG BMPCC get WAY more than that - I got 49 minutes of RAW recording from one 1200mAh battery, and 33 minutes of Prores HQ from a different battery (but it wasn't fully charged).
I unpacked the brand new Wasabi 1200mAh batteries and put them on to charge, so the test was done taking a brand new battery straight out of the charger. I was recording in RAW the card filled up after 23m, with the battery at 54%, so I formatted the card and hit record again, and when it got to 5% battery life it was at 26m, which makes 49m for one the life of a single 1200mAh battery.  That's probably a best-case scenario, but it's pretty darn good if you ask me.  
Second brand new battery recording Prores HQ died around the 20% battery mark, and recorded a 33:22s file.  I'm not sure if it charged properly as the charger kept turning off but it only registered 81% in the camera when I put it in, so maybe not fully charged, but that's also not bad.
This is approaching the battery life of the modern gigapixel monsters that dominate the market now.  The BMPCC battery life complaints are something that used to be bad but are much more 'normal' now, not great, but not unheard of either.

I just got back into film photography. Last month I did an Evil Dead inspired horror photo shoot. This is the first time I've done a conceptual photo shoot with a model. I resurrected my old 35mm Canon Rebel and bought a couple of lenses. This is shot with the Canon 28mm 1.8 (all wide open) on 35mm with Kodak Portra 800. I have some more horror themed photo shoots set up, and some pinup style shoots as well. I also recently got a Yashica Rookie TLR camera and some 120 film.

Wow! I'm going to get some. That's about what I get from a Canon battery on my BMMCC and it's totally acceptable. With the earlier batteries, I had about enough time to set up the date and time, white balance, metadata, etc. and then changed batteries to do the actual shoot.

I finally finished and released this film yesterday. 5 years late is better than never, right? I was dissatisfied with it for a while, and there's a lot I would still change, but I've come to appreciate it. Now. So here it is, at last:
The film has been given a makeover with FilmConvert Nitrate. I'm pretty shocked at how good this a6300 short looks and how much I could recover from overexposed shots. There are only a couple of shots with sorta mushy compression.

Yeah, I thought that 12-bit RAW sensor readout (and the corresponding 10bit log) was pretty much the standard on almost all cameras that have a log profile.  I thought that some cameras had a 14-bit readout but it wasn't that common.
Of course, that is just another feather in the cap for 5D with Magic Lantern - 14-bit RAW straight to the card.  Still a standout spec and stand-out image, 14 years later.

Yes, Canon has nothing that can compare to that lens. I have a friend who shoots with Sony and she raves about that one lens. I definitely agree that a system needs to be as simple as possible and fit your workflow the best so that one lens could definitely decide your future.
I think Sony also still provides 4:2:0 10bit footage so that is a huge timesaver when it comes to editing the source footage if you do not have an M1 Mac. Editing the 60FPS files out of the R5, R6, and R7 is painful on a PC. My system is marginal with the 30FPS files, but I need proxies for 60FPS.
 
 
Not everything comes down to specs, I am very picky with ergonomics when it is my photography camera vs video where it will be held completely differently with a cage and handles. Ergonomics was the reason I picked up a demo Sony camera in the store and put it down and have never considered Sony again.  Also, when a photography camera is my A camera it has to just "feel" right...another thing that no specs can tell you. 
Last but not least, I bought the R6 when I was looking for a hybrid camera; at the time I wasn't looking for a replacement photography camera. Due to the overheating it would not be able to replace my video setup and due to the resolution and way it felt to me when shooting photos with it, it would not be able to replace my 5DIV for reliability, build quality and just the way it felt in the hand.
Even the R5 after the overheating fiasco (still not 100% convinced yet with the latest FW, just because they lifted the timer doesn't mean the reliability won't decrease as it gets hotter), the build quality, the EVF delay, and the freezing just barely puts it in the marginal category for me as a worthy replacement to my 5DIV. 

I have a backlog of 12 client wedding films to edit from scratch if you are that bored? 😬